Snickers chocolate bar is made and marketed by US based Private Corporation called Mars, Inc. It is peanut butter nougat with caramel and peanut topping and dairy milk chocolate. Snickers is a popular chocolate bar sold around the globe and its annual sales is over 2 billion dollars.
In the early 1920s, Mars Inc made a very successful chocolate bar called Milky Way. It was the most popular chocolate bar in America between 1927 and 1929. It also allowed the company to develop new recipes for chocolate candies. It took more than three years to develop Snickers and was released in the market in 1930.
Snickers bar was named in the memory of a favorite horse at a farm of Mars family named Snickers. The horse sadly died couple of months before the new product was launched. The farm was named Milky Way Farm and it seemed suitable that the name of the farm should be given to the next chocolate bar.
Snickers was initially made by hand but later machines were used to increase the volumes and old way was no more practiced. During those times, the price of the first Milky Way bar was in 1920 for only 5 cents and the price of the Snickers bar was 20 cents in 1930 when it was first released.
There was not too much change in the Snickers brand during its first forty years. Mars were inspired to produce the Snickers mini candy bar in 1968 which were labeled ‘fun size’ and were which sold in bags having dozen or more.
Since Snickers was first introduced to the market in the 1930s, it had been known as Marathon chocolate in UK. However in the 1990s, Mars Inc consolidated branding exercise for bringing all of the corporations products under unified Mars branding that would not only be recognized locally but also globally.
The Marathon bar in line with global naming was to become Snickers. It featured the phrase ‘Internationally known as Snickers’ for a period of 18 months. Since then, all Marathon candy were branded Snickers in the British Isles.
There was controversy about the Snickers brand in recent years regarding advertisements perceived to be homophobic. It was notably during Super Bowl XLI when two mechanics sharing Snickers accidentally kiss when reaching the middle. It fueled protests that Mars Inc. was promoting discrimination against gay and lesbian people.
In England, there was also a similar controversy that was the result of an advertisement which featured Mr T. He was seen ridiculing a power walker and firing a rifle at his direction telling while him to do something more manly and seen eating Snickers at the same time. Protesters were annoyed on how the power walker was portrayed in an effeminate manner and Mars Limited was accused of homophobia.
Notably, the controversial ad has neither seemed to damage sales or cause any humiliation to the Mars Inc. Snickers brand has been more positively received in other parts of the world. Snickers is a major sponsor of surfing in Australia while it is known in Latin America for supporting youth activities. Snickers chocolate bars have become an important brand of Mars Inc and its sales have continued to increase.